In these " Lost in Translation" things, I'm looking at how translators-into-German have coped with all those quirky idioms and colloquialisms and regional phrases that we English have ... "I''ll go to the foot of our stairs" and " Stuff that for a game of soldiers" and "round our neck of the woods" or very simple expressions like being "nosey" or "snooty" or " full of it" and the like ..
..and now I'm going to do it with Roald Dahl's "The Twits" ( Die Zwicks stehen Kopf) .... apart from it being great fun, The Twits is full of insults, arguments, cruelty, violence, revenge, silliness, humour and ingenuity. Plenty to get to work on there then .... so here's a few examples so we can see what the translator did ...
You can have a wonky nose ....
Du kannst eine krumme Nase haben ...
You can bet your life Mrs Twit knew all the tricks ...
Und Frau Zwick, so fiel steht fest, kannte alle diese entzuckenden kleinen Scherze und Tricks.
When I see you starting a plot, I watch you like a wombat...
Wenn ich merke, dass du wieder etwas gegen mich ausbrütest
, habe ich meine Augen überall.
I told you I was watching you, I've got eyes everywhere, so you'd better be careful ...
Ich habe dir doch gesagt, dass ich meine Augen überall hatte .. ich sehe alles, nimm dich in Acht.
To pay her back for the glass eye in his beer ...
Um ihr den gemeinen Strich mit dem Glasauge in seinem Bierkrug heimzuzahlen ..
I'll bet it's that giant Skillywiggler ...
Ich wette, das ist dieser Riesenschammbeißer ...
By Golly !
Heilige Strohsack !
It's too squishy...
Sie sind mir zu matschig .
Mrs Twit comes ballooning down ...
Frau Zwick schwebt vom Himmel herab.
You grizzly old grunion !You filthy old frumpet ! ...
Du garstiger Grobian ! Du filzige Vogelscheuche !
I'll swish you to a swazzle ! I'll swash you to a swizzle ! I'll gnash you to a gnozzle !
Ich werde dir was zeigen ! Ich werde dir den Buckel grün und blau schlagen ! Ich werde dir den Hintern versohlen !
The glue he used was something called HUGTIGHT....
Der Leim, den der benutze, hieß FELSEN-FEST .
The Roly-Poly Bird to the rescue .
Der Regenbogenvogel .
Muggle-Wump and his family ...
Schef-Schef und seine Familie ...
Two fearsome frumptious freaks !
..diese beiden furchtbaren Fressäcke ...
Well, that was interesting ...I love that translation for the Roly-Poly Bird .. but what happened to the "rescue" bit ? You can see how the translator, the excellent Charles Schüddekopf, has used a variety of techniques to deal with Dahl's unusual habit of playing about with words.
Now here's Die Toten Hosen and " Hier kommt Alex" ...